I totally agree about styles of beekeeping. The trick is to see or read as many different methods as you can and then GO WITH the one that makes the most sense to you.
You should read a ton of posts during the next several months concerning Wintering hives and harvesting honey - that should give you a realistic idea of what to expect at the end of your first season in beekeeping.
Please use the search engine feature in the forum for general posts concerning topics that you are interested in and always feel free to post questions in any of these forums for help from the hundreds of members!
I hope you get the confidence from these many posts and the help from a mentor to get you started. Having a real experienced beekeeper nearby always is best when facing issues the first time around the beeyard. Once you've had bees awhile, common sense usually can get you through swarming, pests, weather and preditor matters - but beekeeping is a fun hobby, a relaxing hobby if approached properly and even profitable on larger scales but only when mother nature cooperates, just as with any farming crop.
Welcome to the forum, it's great to see you are wanting to learn before jumping into the hobby - many people do it bass-ackwards and that almost always leads to trouble. Keep posting!!!!